My 125 gallon planted tank

[Wahter]

Last year, I finally bought a 125 gallon aquarium (brand new). One of the local fish stores delivers at no charge, so I went with them (their prices were reasonable too). It measures 72" x 22" x 18" (about 182.88cm x 55.88cm x 45.72" for my metric friends). I'm using it as a divider between my formal living room and my dining room. When the house was built, I originally wanted to position this along the outside wall, but the builder told me that the joists are running parallel to that wall. That's a big 'no-no' to place a tank of this size on only a couple of joists. When this aquarium is filled with water, gravel, rocks, etc... it will weigh roughly 1400 pounds (about 635kg for my metric friends). Fortunately, there is a major support beam under the flooring running across the opening between the living room and the dining room and the joists overlap on it, making it even sturdier. When my house was being inspected, I specifically asked him if that would hold up the aquarium and he said "that's where you'll want to put it".



The stand that I picked is called "Mission Classic" - it's made of a laminate (similar to flooring) material. Both are made by Aqueon Products. I like the Aqueon 125 gallon tanks more than the Marineland/ Perfecto tanks because that other brand only has a single cross brace, whereas this one has two on the top and bottom plastic frames. FYI, in foreign countries, their aquariums do NOT have a plastic frame on the top nor bottom, they just use extra thick glass and support the edges with additional pieces of glass. The stand doesn't have much of a back though; that kind of has me worried. I plan to eventually get some wooden doors mounted on the back since this aquarium can be seen on both sides. I noticed a couple of areas in the stand where the dowels weren't glued too well, so I'll have to go in and glue them back.


Walter

[Wahter]

Last year, I had already planned to buy the 125 gallon aquarium, so I went ahead and started buying the accessories. I started off by buying the filter. In this case, I chose the Eheim Professional 3 model 2080 (the largest of the Pro 3 series). This unit is a canister filter, has two hoses for inputs (for water going into the filter) and one hose for output (back into the aquarium tank), has a primer button to start the siphoning, a flow control switch and a flow control meter, holds 4 liters of Efimech media (looks like short macaroni noodles), 8 liters of Substrat pro media (looks like Coco Pufffs), a coarse sponge for mechanical filtration, and a fine woven material for smaller materials. It pumps out 450 gallons per hour and even has wheels so you can tilt and roll it out of the stand / cabinet. It's slightly larger than a 5 gallon (about 18.9 liters) bucket. Comes with a 3 year warranty. I'm not sure there will be enough flow to prevent "dead spots" in the tank, so I am thinking of adding a powerhead (or two). Interestingly, the filter does NOT come with all of the necessary media, so I had to order the media separately.



That media alone adds another $100.00 to the already high price of the filter. I rinsed out the filter media trays/ baskets and the media (the substrat pro was unusually dusty and needed to be rinsed about 4 times) Eheim filters are made in Germany and have a good reputation for being reliable (albeit expensive). Some people are still using their Eheim filters for 15+ years, so I expect this to last me awhile. I currently have an Eheim Pro I filter on my 55 gallon tank.

I also plan to use a Marineland Powerhead for additional water circulation.

[Wahter]

Usually, freshwater aquarium tanks have the worst lighting over them in terms of being ready for keeping plants. I guess it's for the sake of price that people just want to see the fish and don't mind if it's under a red enhanced light. In general, most of the light strips that are sold with aquarium tanks just don't produce enough light to grow aquarium plants very well. In fact, one company, A H Supply, makes kits that you can replace the regular light strips with ones that use compact fluorescent technology. (just don't expect them to help you when the light burns out in 90 days - I did and they didn't do anything for me). Since I had some bad luck with A H Supply, I looked elsewhere for my lighting needs and choose to get two of Coralife's Freshwater Aqualight strips which use two 96 watt compact fluorescent light tubes. They come with dual fans and two switches (so you can choose to have the lights run independently, although only one of the lights is tied into the fans), a nice aluminum casing, and a clear plastic lens (if you want to mount this over an open top aquarium). I bought these when they were on sale last year. I have a couple of friends who have these light strips and they like them (although it seems one of the strips died after awhile - maybe the ballast died?). I know that T5 and the recent crop of LED lights are more energy efficient, but I went with compact fluorescents just because I'm familiar with them and the light strips were at a good price.

BTW, I like the Current brand of compact fluorecent lights. They are priced reasonably, have a good life, and are readily available.

[Wahter]

Although the Eheim Pro 3 filter includes the nicer input and output assemblies (you can configure them for different depths by adding or removing pieces), it didn't come with enough tubing as I needed, so I had to order another length of tubing. It came with roughly 14 feet (about 4.26 meters) of their famous green tubing and I need almost double that since I need the tubing to reach from one side of the aquarium tank to the other (have to count the length of the aquarium and the height, plus some extra so I can roll the filter out of the stand). The siphoning input (from the aquarium to the filter) will be the longer tubes - that way the filter won't have as much resistance when it's pumping water back into the tank.

[Wahter]

Because discus do well at 84-86ºF (about 28.89-30ºC), I bought another 200 watt Eheim Jagger heater. Eheim took over the product line Ebo Jagger (which were pretty good for most people - the latter ones need to be calibrated). I tested out the Eheim Jagger and calibrated it. I still have another 200 watt heater to suppliment this one. Since the 125 gallon tank is 6 feet long, I plan to place one heater on each side so that should keep the entire tank fairly uniform in temperature (with the filter and a powerhead to circulate the water). One thing that I notice which happens to a lot of people is that they do their water changes without unplugging their heaters and that will lead to cracking the glass on the heater. What I like to do is put the filter and the heater on the same power surge strip and turn it off when I'm doing water changes. Some other people mount their heaters horizontally and low in the tank so that when they drain the water, the heater will still be submerged.

[Wahter]

Because I have the Aqueon 125 gallon aquarium tank, I bought the Aqueon glass Versa Tops for their 125 gallon aquarium tank. Unlike the Marineland brand whicn only has one cross bar on the plastic frame, the Aqueon brand has two, so you need to match up the brands of the glass tops. I've already measured and tested to make sure that the Coralife light strip will fit on the Versa Top. You want to be able to open the Versa top lid without having to remove the light strip (which I have to currently do for my 55 gallon tank) - that is a big pain, especially when the lights fall out on the floor and shatter!

Some people skip putting any type of a cover/ hood over their aquarium; the advantage is that you have nothing to decrease the light from entering the water (after several months/ a few years, minerals, deposits, etc... from the water will cause the glass to become transluscent, rather than transparent). On the other hand, without a cover/ hood, the fish can possibly jump out and it also usually results in a higher rate of evaporation. Since I have discus (which are rather pricey and I've had some jump out of a tank before, even during feeding) and a humidifier, I'll decided to keep a cover over the tank.

[Wahter]

I already have a few bags of Seachem's Flourite mixed with Estes "Bits of Walnut" gravel, so I wanted something a little lighter to create a front section of decorative fine gravel. I didn't go with Pool Filter sand because I thought that might be a bit too fine and would eventually compact (unless I stirred it up regularly), so I chose CaribSea's "Instant Aquarium - Torpedo Beach". It looks a bit more gray than I had wanted, but it should look fine once it's in the aquarium and getting lit by the light strip.
Tonight I ordered some pieces of Manzanita wood from www.manzanita.com . I spoke with Rich O'Brien on the phone, I showed him a photo of one of Amano's tanks (from Aquajournal #118) and told him "this is what I want to create". You can see the rear corners of the tank have the darker gravel while the front and center have the lighter sand. I'll find out in a week to see what he's packed up for me.

[Wahter]

Since the new aquarium is so long, I think I should have a CO2 diffuser on each end (other people on the 'net seem to agree). I was thinking about running the CO2 into a "T" connector to split the gas from one into two lines then adding an in-line needle valve on each line. Since I went that route, I'd need to buy another needle valve (such as the Fabco NV 55 needle valve) which would ran about another $30.00 (once shipping is added in).



I've been using the Eheim CO2 Reaktor for several years and it's worked out alright for me. It uses a sintered glass diffuser. Amano's company makes a larger one, but that one is also priced at $125.00US each. I've also been using the Dennerle check valves without any problems, so I'll stick with that too.

[Wahter]

I changed the standard electrical outlet that I will be using to be a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI). I also got one that is tamper resistant (harder for kids to stick things into the outlet).

When you look at a normal 120-volt outlet in the United States, there are two vertical slots and then a round hole centered below them. The left slot is slightly larger than the right. The left slot is called "neutral," the right slot is called "hot" and the hole below them is called "ground." If an appliance is working properly, all electricity that the appliance uses will flow from hot to neutral. A GFCI monitors the amount of current flowing from hot to neutral. If there is any imbalance, it trips the circuit. It is able to sense a mismatch as small as 4 or 5 milliamps, and it can react as quickly as one-thirtieth of a second.

So let's say you are outside with your power drill and it is raining. You are standing on the ground, and since the drill is wet there is a path from the hot wire inside the drill through you to ground (see How Power Distribution Grids Work for details on grounding). If electricity flows from hot to ground through you, it could be fatal. The GFCI can sense the current flowing through you because not all of the current is flowing from hot to neutral as it expects -- some of it is flowing through you to ground. As soon as the GFCI senses that, it trips the circuit and cuts off the electricity. (from http://www.howstuffworks.com)

[Wahter]

I bought this Aquarium Cleaning Mat. I have one in front of my 50 gallon aquarium right now and I bought a larger one for the 125 gallon aquarium. These really come in handy when you're doing maintenance. Since I have wooden floors, I try to keep the water off them and try to keep things from falling on the flooring (which can dent the wood).

[Wahter]

I had originally bought this metal Gilmour connector set. It looks like it would work fine (I'm planning to attach it between the Python hose pump and the faucet, so I can quickly and easily connect and disconnect the pump when not in use). I would have bought the Python brand quick connect and disconnect, but their products are hard to find now (I think they are in some sort of financial bind).

After I bought it, I read that that this isn't even made of brass, only the ones with labeled as brass are truly brass, otherwise they are made of aluminum and aren't as durable. On top of that, I found out that even if it were made of brass, there are some brass alloys which contain lead, so they warned not to use it for drinking water. The manufacturer confirmed this to me. So I returned it.



Instead, I bought the plastic version. Probably not as durable as the metal, but it should be safer for my fish. Technically, you're not supposed to mix a plastic connector with a metal one since eventually, the metal will cut into the plastic or the plastic will wear out and crack, but I'd rather have this low price item break, than the Python hose pump .

[Wahter]

For those who don't know, Python is a brand of aquarium cleaning products that use a hose and a switch (they call it a pump) at the faucet. You attach this unit to the faucet, then attach it to a hose which the other end is inside your aquarium tank. With a twist (while running the faucet) either the water will drain from the aquarium tank or be filled by the tap water. I use it only to fill (I drain the water into my bushes, shrubs, and lawn in the summer). While it's being filled, I neutralize the chlorine and ammonia in the tapwater with Seachem's Safe. Anyway, the original Python pump that I had broke (I think the metal threads on the faucet dug into the plastic threads too deep and the plastic cracked), but fortunately, there is a compatible product made by Lee's (another brand), since it's getting hard to find the Python brand products now. As you can see from the photo, these two products are nearly identical. So I recently bought that. My plan is to put the quick connect between the pump and the faucet, so I can remove the pump easily when not in use. Also, the quick connector gets around the problem of having the metal threads of the faucet ruin the plastic threads of the pump.

[Wahter]

I decided to use a solution of bleach and water to wipe down the aquarium (frame, glass, silicone sealant, etc...) inside and out. There was some dust in it and a bit of dirt (probably from whatever warehouse which it was stored). You can see my 50 gallon aquarium in the back and the planted 29 gallon aquarium is on the right. After wiping it down, I went over it with some dechloramined water to neutralize any bleach residue.

[Wahter]

It's quite important for an aquarium tank to be level and if need be, it should be shimmed to be level. Otherwise, the uneven weight, etc... could weaken the silicon sealant at the joints and eventually cause leaks. Or at least I'm told. Not wanting to take any chances, I used a very small laser level to check out the aquarium and it's very close to being perfectly flat and level. You can see the bubble in the green liquid at the top of the level is near center.

[Wahter]

Pour in the Seachem Flourite.

I've used Seachem Flourite for many years and I have lots to spare, so I poured it into the 125 gallon aquarium. Since I'm trying to follow the Amano style of using a lighter colored sand in the foreground and creating a "path" to the back of the tank, I mound the Flourite roughly in the necessary position. I'm aiming for a 3" depth in the rear with a 2" depth in the front.